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I
had an idea about how the dream looked, I saw it in many forms of media (print,
television, and radio + culture) from the 1960s up to now – but if you take a
closer look, the dream might not ever arrive…and this time, it’s not your
fault.

By
Don Allen, Senior Editorial Columnist

Editorial
Opinion: To tell you the truth, I don’t know which
version of the dream I like best – it could be too many.

How do you destroy a monster without becoming one? (Photo: Fair-Use)

Money, cars, trips, people at your beckoned call,
political favoritism, a house, car, job, peace, quiet, an acre of land? God knows
what and how this dream is defined – but one thing for sure, problems are a big
part of any dream. There are so many dreams talked about, I wondered what I
would want from “my dream” because I think every person is unique, an exquisite
one-of-a-kind mold of an individual meant to do great works. But there’s a caveat, if we as a nation of Black
men and woman do not create an agency of successful-individualism, then how can
we perform as a collective to move our agendas of the dream forward?

I would like to make this perfectly clear; in no
way shape or form am I disrespecting the late and honored Dr./Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr’s memory, legacy or existence, because I’m not qualified to do that. I
am asking you to think past the 1960s into today – look for the dream wished
for and promised, but never developed – like a bad Polaroid, repeatedly.

When
I hear super-rich music celebrities like Pharrell and Common talk about the New
Black, who according to Common the New Black doesn’t blame other races for our
issues, it makes his argument on blackness into an ignorant mentality that
undermines the Black body. Pharrell said in an interview posted on the Daily Beast, “The New Black dreams and
realizes that it’s not pigmentation: it’s a mentality, and it’s either going to work for
you or it’s going to work against you. And you’ve got
to pick the side you’re going to be on.”

What I know is the
historical and relevant ‘Ole Black’ has one side, its survival.

Common
and Pharrell’s lack of clairvoyance distributed internationally from the White
mainstream media platforms sends the Black body back to “Colored Only” drinking
fountains and bathrooms. White political outrage over Black disparities does
not fix Black fear of living in New-racist, post-truth America – it just
extended conscious concern about the race-terrorism in the dismissal of the
dream; from the burger joint to the board room.

Reality check: There
is a fear in spaces dominated by powerful White people, and it
can’t be captured on video. Black folks
and other people of color will understand the fear, but over
this month of February, Black History Month, Black people continue to be the
targets of extreme institutional and structural injustices and deadly social-violence,
outsourced, pandered, and delivered to us via superficial community
conversations with “safe Blacks” that will not ask historical questions about
the Black body in White spaces moving the focus of leadership and equity to a
state of being persona non grata in this version of the Dream.

Okay
– it might sound like I’m angered, but I’m not. At this point knowing that if
we don’t put petty stuff aside, our life’s will become mechanical – a daily
drive by of pre-set markers that we have to hit in order to survive. A Dream
would mean you have markers that you control, change and update. Yes, I have a Dream,
but I see people on television acting it out – we can life imitate art inside
the construct of a Dream, my Dream, your Dream?